The Common Reader

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"A man who has climbed the Matterhorn may prefer Derbyshire to Switzerland, but he won't think the Peak is the highest mountain in Europe."
 • 
Henry Oliver
14
How to be a late bloomer in 2024
What did you do today to make that tomorrow possible?
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Henry Oliver
34
I quit my job to write a book about late bloomers
Not before time...
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Henry Oliver
114
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The modern discourse novel
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87
No, Taylor Swift is not Mary Shelley
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73
The case for opsimaths. Maybe late bloomers aren't so late
 • Henry Oliver
16
Lolita is not a moral test
 • Henry Oliver
9
I quit my job to write a book about late bloomers
 • Henry Oliver
114
Aiming at something noble. Resolutions for human flourishing.
 • Henry Oliver
25
Will AI create a new creative renaissance?
Maybe, but lots of other factors matter too
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Henry Oliver
9
No, Taylor Swift is not Mary Shelley
The philistine supremacy is real.
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Henry Oliver
73
Shakespeare club update
We return in September (sort of August too)
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Henry Oliver
5
Why I read children's books
The simple faith of the imagination
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Henry Oliver
6
Be serious, Mother reader, Critic friend, AI, Franchise, Mozart, Moby Dick, War and Peace, Internet novels
The Irregular Review of Reviews VII.
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Henry Oliver
2
Impossible Creatures, by Katherine Rundell
Good but not that good
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Henry Oliver
4
The biographer's morality
Keeping secrets about Alice Munro
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Henry Oliver
13
Why rage against a good night?
Reading Dylan Thomas
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Henry Oliver
11
The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
A book to read out loud
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Henry Oliver
44
The Common Reader
The Common Reader
Essays for interesting people about talent, literature, and biography. "One of my favourite Substacks." Helen Lewis
Recommendations
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The Bluestocking
The Bluestocking
Helen Lewis
Mostly Aesthetics
Mostly Aesthetics
Brad Skow
How We Homeschool
How We Homeschool
Catherine Oliver
Notes of an Aesthete
Notes of an Aesthete
Alice Gribbin
A Year of Bach
A Year of Bach
Evan Goldfine

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